Uneasiness in Egypt All the news from Egypt in the past week has been of failure to make progress in the major projects on which the stability of the country depends. The...

A Parliament for Europe? The ad hoc Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Union would appear to be acting with some impetuosity in settling down to consider the elaborate and...

Progress in Malaya I | Terror is the conventional method employed against terrorists. Until their, whole - military position -wa§s undermined, thq-Germans and the Japanese, who...

Coal-Not Good Enough So strong is the inclination to refrain from criticising coalminers-whose response to criticism is often the reverse of helpful-and so deeply ingrained has...

HOW SAFE IS EUROPE ? IN his meeting with the New York Press on Monday Mr. Churchill, carefully correcting a reporter who represented him as having said that the danger of a...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK A S sa pedestrian who was once knocked down very decisively by a motor-car, and a motorist who has never 11 knocked anyone else down (as yet), I was a...

It is a long time since a sernmon has received so general and extensive publicity as Dr. W. E. Sangster's call for a revival of religion at the Central Hall at Westminster last...

I shall be interested to hear the true explanation -of tX; ostracism of London by the imposing Mexican Art Exhibition which has for some months been touring Europe; when in...

The New Year's Honours List appeared on Thursday morning last week, and I had to write a paragraph on it at the last moment at the printer's, with that despot endeavouring to...

It is rather exhilarating to find myself at one with Lord | Beaverbrook. In the war he is waging with certain film companies, a war gratuitously and unwarrantably forced on...

Fleet Street just now is very busy propagating rumour. " An old-established weekly is to change hands." Obviously The Spectator. By no means. The Spectator is entirely happy as...

The Writing of English By LORD EUSTACE PERCY* A SPEAKER at a recent educational conference, who is reported to have referred to the " appalling standard " of English " in the...

The Coelacanth By PROFESSOR C. M. YONGE, F.R.S.* EVERY zoologist must long to have the opportunity of examining the structure of a new type of animal, not just a new...

The Dutch Radio, Way with By ANGELA CROOME IN England it can be assumed that those who are not with monopoly radio are against it, because few people realise that there are...

Getting to Court By MARGERY MUMFORD ANairobi. T HE arguments put in the case of the Crown versus Dennis Knowle Pritt, Q.C., before Their Lordships in the Supreme Court of...

The Hard SIR,-Emerging somewhat breathless from my encounter with the Six Fellows of St. John's, I must corfess to a slight feeling of jubilation in finding that- even Homer...

At the Circus SiR,-As a subscriber to the Spectator, I write to express my surprise and grave concern upon finding, among "Contemporary Arts," the review of Christmas circuses....

Tennyson's Ode to Wellington I SIR,-Colonel Fergusson's Hark Back is delightful, but at one point misleading. When he speaks of Tennyson "working belatedly on the Ode for tje...

The Four Gospels SIR,-May I be permitted to add some comments to your notice of the translation of the Four Gospels by E. V. Rieu in the Penguin Classics ? This seems to me a...

" Seeing Browning Plain" SIR,-Mr. J. M. Cohen truly says that "we do not today look to our poets for moral messages.- We do, however. look to them for true emotion ansd for a...

After Milking I had to knock more than once, and a dog barked inside the house. No one answered, and, as I was crossing the uneven court, a young farm-labourer came out of the...

An Old Horseman Jim is a horseman. One day he comes trotting down into the village standing upright in a float that is used to collect p:ig-swill. and the next he walks at his...

Mutilated Trees Holly-bushes that were well-covered with berries are a sorry sight now. The shops in the village had very little holly to offer this year for some reason, and...

COUNTRY LIFE OUR headlights picked up two hares sitting on the road, their ears erect and their large eyes glistening. As we came uphill to them, one loped a little way along...

Potting-Compost With 'most of the digging done. it is time to order seeds for the vegetable and flower garden and to make up compost for seed boxes and pots. Mix seven parts by...

SIR,-Mr. D. M Macdonald is misinformed. Since the Act of Union of 1707 it has been impossible for the Sovereign's title to take the form which he suggests, for the central...

Miscegenation SIR,-I wonder whether, at a time when relations between races are being so much discussed as now, you would think it worth while lending the support of the...

SIR,-Mfr. Baerlcin's statement that Tito makes the not unreasonable request that a priest should be a good citizen " appears, at first sight, to be just and sensible. On closer...

Marshal Tito's Visit SIR,-Mfr. Evelyn Waugh may have forgotten that Our Lord told us to love our enemies. This is not always practicable in time ot hot or cold war, but it...

Schools and Sport SIR,-The association by Mr. Mallalieu of the majority of masters in English public schools with Hitler and Stalin will not be taken seriously; yet the...

Mau Mau SIR,-It is popularly believed that there is no smoke without fire; the present deplorable situation in Kenya is like smoke whose source is traceable to somewhere. Some...

The Queen's Numeral , I SIR,-Accord'ng to my reference-books it seems that the monarch e commonly known as William IV was William II of Ireland, William 11 of Wales, William...

The Use of a Hatchet SIR,-I beg to protest most strongly against Janus's unworthy comment in his final note in a recent issue that "it was really very wrong of him to do it...

UNDERGRADUATE PAGE My Factory By OLIVER CRAWFORD (Worcester College, Oxford) IN July, 1952, in a heat-wave, I went to work in a factory. After only five months my memory of...

Deep Thoughts in January What apt provision Nature's made! In winter we need sun, not shade, So trees are bare to let it through! In winter, nights are longer, too, So as to...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS ART Dutch Drawings (British Museum) and other Exhibitions. OF the 200 prints and drawings of the Dutch school that the British Museum has put on show to...

CINEMA My Cousin Rachel. (Odeon.)-The Prisoner of Zenda. (Empire.) -Hullo Elephant. (Rialto.) My Cousin Rachel is described by its promoters as a " new romance sinister." From...

THEATRE The Man. By Mel Dinelli. (Her Majesty's.) WiTH one length of howling lunacy and another of humdrum sanity, Mr. Dinelli has twisted a thread of horrific melodrama and...

New Car or Old? By RAYMOND PARMENTER FROM January 1st of this year nearly all cars have to pay the same annual tax of £12 10s. per annum. What effect will this have on our...

"New Year Greetings" [The recipient of this instructive communication from a business firm in India has forwarded it for the edification of readers of The Spectator.] WE take...

Communist Incompetents One of the supreme virtues claimed for the Communist system is efficiency. " Ruthless the Communists may be, but they do know how to plan." That may be...

NEW MOVES IN KENYA T t THERE is no sign that the Mau Mau has been intimidated in,the slightest by the campaign against it. On the contrary, the last week has seen it at its...

Shorter Notices Hong Kong. By Harold Ingrams. (H.M.S.O. Corona Library. 27s. 6d.) How many people realise that only 110 years ago Hong Kong was nothing more than a home for...

Related' Multiplicity. By B. K. Mallik. (Hall, Oxford. 30s.) AT a time when so many philosophers have concentrated upon language, it is heartening to be brought back to...

THE "SPECTATOR" CROSSWORD No. 7121 fA Bodc Token for one gufnea w be awarded to the sender ol the frst corret Ioluton opened after noon o Tuesday week, Jauary 20th, addressed...

Solution to Crossword No. 710 a]20 'oNaid 0 ~~~~ TI~~ 4 A S 'r N 4 14 w s e .e^Z - 14 1£e hA Vei A V!NSIS £25 Solution on January 231 The winner of Crossword No. 710 is: Mrs....

Man of One Work George Douglas Brown. By James Veitch. (Herbert Jenkins. 15s.) cjEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN was born in 1869 at Ochiltree in Ayrshire. Like his literary antithesis,...

An American Critic The Complex Fate. By Marius Bewley. (Chatto & Windus. 16s.) MR. BEWLEY, like other young American critics, is seriously preoccupied with the American...

The Young Lawbreaker The Young Delinquent in his Social Setting. By Thomas Ferguson. (Nuffield Foundation. Oxford University Press. 10s. 6d.)- The Treatment of the Young...

Prayer for a Sentry Neither strong nor tall, a stone at his heart, Yet he stands like a wall in his lumpish boots. He is limbed like a doll in pathos of lead. And his life is a...

MUSIC Carl Nielsen. Tlus is the first study to appear in England of a composer who held a great position during his lifetime in his native Denmark and was respected in...

BALLET Le Lac des Cygnes. (Royal Opera House.) .THE new production of Swan Lake, by its very splendour and importance, makes even more demands than formerly upon its premiere...

Portrait of Reynolds Portraits. By Sir Joshua Reynolds. Edited by Frederick W. I Hilles. (Heinemann. 21s.) I THIS third volume of the "trade," or popular, edition of the...

BOOKS OF THE WEEK Hackney and Moscow The Communist Technique in Britain. By Bob Darke. (Collins. lOs. 6d.) BY a reversal of the usual process this remarkable book has...

YORKSHIRE DERBY By J. P. W. MALLALIEU M Y train shot from the long Standedge tunnel just as dawn was creeping down Wessendon and lighting Black Hill. I cleared a circle on the...

In the Fish's Mouth Under the Red Sea. By Hans Hass. (Jarrolds. 16s.) THE water on the surface of the Red Sea is sometimes warmer than blood-heat, and on the maze of shallow...

Edward VII to the People SIR,-In her inspiring Christmas broadcast our Queen-made it clear to all of us what the Coronation means to her. If is interesting to remember that her...

Stephen Radic SIR.-As I w\as Secretary)-eneral of the Croat Peasant Party and the Croat National Representation, when Stephen Radi6 was their President, I feel it m) duty to...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Drawing the Dole Sia,-It is rather a curious experience to come on to the Unemployment Register for the first time. My head fell under the axe in the...

African History Hope in Africa. By C. J. M. Alport. (Herbert Jenkins. 15s.) MEMBERS of Parliament and the thirty or thirty-five million voters who elect them are sorely and...

London Piece by Piece Survey of London: Vol. XXIV, Kings Cross Neighbourhood. By Walter H. Godfrey and W. McB. Marcham. (L.C.C. 35s.) Without the City Wall: A Survey of...

The Ghost of a Snigger ? Rarely Pure. By Sewell Stokes. (Peter Davies. 15s.) MR. STOKES, whose Court Circular, based on his experiences as a probation officer, was deservedly...

Fiction The Financial Expert. By R. K. Narayan. With an Introduction by Graham Greene. (Methuen. 12s. 6d.) Midsummer Meadow. By John Moore. (Collins. 1Os. 6d.) Let the Day...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS As was expected, the Anglo-Iranian Debenture issue has been a spectacular success, and unofficial estimates of total applications range...